Take care of downtown blight, decay

Updated 5:43 pm, Friday, March 21, 2014

City Council Diego Bernal has announced new plans for the city to get aggressive about cleaning up dilapidated buildings.

City Council Diego Bernal has announced new plans for the city to get aggressive about cleaning up dilapidated buildings.

Photo: Express-News File Photo

Take care of downtown blight, decay

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — Night and day and from a distance, San Antonio's downtown skyline offers a stunning display as robust as the hopes embedded in the city's plans for a “decade of downtown.”

And yet within, looking up from too many downtown streets, the decay of downtown might seem a more appropriate slogan.

Amid some noteworthy bright spots, beat up, vacant buildings dot the downtown landscape. Their windows shout out a tale of emptiness — opportunities for economic vitality lost, too often because of owner neglect.

For this to change, the city must take care of some neglect of its own. And there are signs this is about to happen. It must.

A recent Express-News article by Ben Olivo told of city plans to address this with an empty-building action plan. Councilman Diego Bernal, whose district includes downtown, told of 30 such buildings.

His message: “We are about to significantly amplify our response.” He adds, not just downtown, but in city neighborhoods suffering the same malady, including messy vacant lots.

The city will use a mixture of code enforcement and penalties to induce compliance. Incentives and marketing will try to induce cooperation.

Compliance and cooperation — both will be needed.

The compliance will be necessary for those building owners — in some cases, absentee — who bought the property for investment purposes and then seemingly forgot it. The cooperation will come in with those building owners willing to make improvements but who need some help or nudging to do so.

Yes, much of downtown space is vacant because no one wants to relocate to decrepit buildings. But vacancies also occur because the business-sense of being downtown is not always readily apparent.

The city approach must accommodate both realities.

And a big part of that is making downtown more residential-friendly, with projects in the works on this score as well.

But on the business front, CPS Energy's plans to keep its headquarters in the urban core is welcome news. The municipally owned utility could construct a new building downtown, a developer could build one and lease it back or CPS might find a suitable existing building.

Improving the stock of usable downtown buildings can attract similar attention. And, yes, give the same focus to the city's residential neighborhoods.